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Monday, 30 September 2013

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, in a few short hours the world famous Bloggers for Charity Auction will begin. The rules are as follows:

The auction will begin at 00:01 BST on Tuesday 1 October 2013 and end at 23:59 on Thursday 10 October 2013.

To qualify for participation in the auction, bidders must:

a) be a member/follower of Bloggers for Charity.

b) prove that they have promoted/publicised both Bloggers for Charity and the auction itself. They must include the relevant URL in their bid email for verification.

This will be a closed bidding process. Members of Bloggers for Charity may bid as often as they wish, but they will be bidding blind: no bids will be published.

The email address to which bids must be sent is d135254l@gmail.com and marked BfC Auction in the subject box.

The highest bid at the end of the auction will be the winner and the funds can be transferred directly to Bloggers for Charity. The figures will not be dispatched until the transfer has taken place.

There are SIX figures included in the auction lot and will all be sold as a group. They are Foundry explorer types from the Darkest Africa range, but can obviously be used with variety of rule sets from 'Bog aTen' to the new 'In Her Majesty's Name'. They are illustrated below in the popular slightly out of focus technique which has taken years to perfect:

Friday, 27 September 2013

Calling all our volunteer painters, I will be collecting most of the lead for painting on Saturday at NOT DERBY from Andrew at AW Miniatures. I shall be contacting you by email on Monday or Tuesday to obtain postal addresses and check that you are still happy to undertake the painting of a unit etc..

Sunday, 22 September 2013

The Bloggers for Charity
scheme is pretty much unique and is bound to benefit (hopefully) many
people. However, I think it needs more members and, of course, more
money in the old oak chest. Blunt? Yeah, I know, but I've got broad shoulders and skin like a rhino.

So, in an attempt to
achieve both obvious goals, I've obtained permission from the
Presidium to organise a small auction of painted figures as a test to
see if it will raise more money than simply putting the figures on
eBay and donating the proceeds to the blog. So why go to all this messing? Well, being a realist, I'm
aware that it may not raise as much cash as an eBay auction, but it should raise awareness of Bloggers for
Charity and gain more members/followers if only because they realise that the only way to get their hands on otherwise inaccessible figures without having to compete against the world is to support the blog. How? Read on.

The auction will
begin at 00:01 BST on Tuesday 1 October (2013) and end at 23:59 BST
on Thursday 10 October (2013).

In order to qualify
for participation in the auction, bidders must :

a) be a member/follower
of Bloggers for Charity b) prove that they have
promoted/publicised Bloggers for Charity and the auction itself.

I will advise the
email address to which bids must be submitted when the auction
opens.

This will be a
closed bidding process. Members of Bloggers for Charity may make as
many bids as they wish, but they will be bidding blind. No bids will
be published (but it won't take a genius to work out how much the
figures were sold for).

The highest bid at
the end of the auction period will be the winner and the funds can
be transferred directly to Bloggers for Charity.

Relax, I will pay
postage.

I'll repost this information and more when the auction opens, but now, what about the
figures? Well, those of you who always skip to the end of the crime
thriller will have noticed a photo:

and those of you who know
about such things or have a decent imagination (which lets me out)
will realise that it's a useful (Foundry) adventure type for Back of Beyond,
Darkest Africa or even adaptations of Necromunda There are five
explorer figures in total.

O.K., reality check. If you're a bit of a chisler you'll realise instantly that you'll be competing against a pretty small group and that only some of these will bid so you might be able to get the figures for less than you might on an open auction. Fair enough, but just remember it's for a good cause and not just a raid on a charity shop. If it turns out not to be viable then it was worth trying, but that's all folks. However, if it turns out to be a success (measured in membership numbers as well as income) then I've got other stuff going spare and it's a knocking bet that others will have too - and it doesn't matter where the figures etc, are located. by the way, I'm always open to suggestions for improvements and better ideas so don't be shy.

Saturday, 21 September 2013

So after the last post we had a great response, I am happy to say that I have been in contact with a great Blogger who has agreed to act as the 2015 Planning Team Leader. I felt it was better this way so the plan can be driven by one person with help from Andy and myself, in his team will be many of you bloggers who want to help but are maybe time poor or feel you lacked the know how to plan an event like this. Andy and I want as many of you as possible to feel involved, I understand that for many the painting is going to be your input but others may not want to offer their painting skills but have other aspects they can help with.
Some may think we are getting ahead of ourselves as the 2014 figures have not even been sent out but, that should give you an indication of how much planning, testing and communications have to go on before these events can get off the ground. 2014 will always be our first BfC but I firmly believe this will only get bigger and better each successive year.
As this is becoming a permanent fixture on our little area of the blogosphere and the wargames world I was wondering if we had any graphic artist out there who would be willing to look at graphics for BfC we already have our 2014 logo created by Andy but would love to see what you guys could come up with.

Monday, 16 September 2013

While I understand you painting volunteers are still awaiting figures and effectively feel BfC is not even started. For us organizers it has been a bit like the swimming swan, calm above water while under we have been peddling furiously.... But it has been a real treat for all involved and for myself and Loki it has become a real passion.

The reaction we have been getting from the wargames industry has got the two of us thinking, why does it only have to be for one year. Loki and I have been chatting and we wanted to share a few ideas and see what you lot think.

First off I would like to say that Andy (Loki) has agreed to become the BfC Hon. Chairman and I will take the role of Treasurer/Secretary we want to see that BfC is a continuing success. The next part is where we would love some feedback.

The BfC plan will be to put on a demo game at two shows in a year (start and end) the components of the games will be painted and built by the Wargames Blogger community. A quick aside we do not expect you all to paint every year but hope you would be happy to help every now and then. After the last event each year the game components will be sold/auctioned off and the proceeds given to that years chosen charities.

So we are well on the way to 2014's game but would love to hear ideas for a 2015 game.
The planning of these games is a busy thing and as you will be aware we have been busy planning next years game this year. 2015 would need planning throughout 2014 even Andy and I think this is too much so we have come up with another proposal the BfC will need two planning teams who leap frog each other. Again we do not need a long term commitment but you may feel you would love a go at doing the BfC for one year.

We would hope that we have read the reaction of the wider community correctly and that this BfC will be well supported, Andy and I are happy to support and help any planning teams (even non Europe based, plenty of bloggers in USA or NZ, AUS)
So in summary.

Would you Support BfC ongoing?
Do you accept Andy and I as the committee?
Any Ideas for 2015?
Do you want to be part of the 2015 planning Team? (feel free to contact Andy or I privately through G+)

Sunday, 15 September 2013

Well hopefully you have made the journey safely from my personal blog to here without any troubles. If you have come straight here then you may need to pop over to my blog for a full understanding of events so far.

So a quick recap, due to a breach of my copyright some emails have been exchanged with the Tin Soldiers of Antwerp.

This morning I received a text from James asking if a generous contribution to the projects charity fund had anything to do with me? I could only reply maybe as he made me aware of where the contribution had come from, but this was very unexpected.

So Firstly let me thank Willie and the other committee members for the generous donation received, it is greatly appreciated and does a lot for a man's faith in conducting matters in a gentlemanly way.

About half an hour later I received an email from Willie that draws a full and happy conclusion to the whole event.

Andrew,

Indeed a very gentlemanly way to resolve this unfortunate
matter.

As you said, in doing so we will be able to turn this whole
thing into a positive result for all parties concerned.

So it goes
without saying that we would be most honoured if Bloggers For
Charity would host a game at Crisis 2014. Just let me know what you need
and I'll make sure everything is ready and waiting for you.Crisis 14 by the
way is scheduled for Nov. 8th next year, at the same venue as this year. The
venue itself is extremely easy to find as, coming from whichever direction, you
don't have to leave the main motorway until the last few hundred meters. Anyway,
if you need any additional info such as a more detailed roadmap. the exact
SatNav setting or anything else you can think of please don't hesitate to
contact me.

We will also give your organisation the maximum exposure at
our disposal, details of which I still have to talk through with the more
technically inclined members of our committee. But for certain 'Bloggers
For Charity' will be mentioned on our adverts, flyers, posters and other
forms of media coverage used for the Crisis events.

But somehow we felt a
little more had to be done. So I hope you won't find it presumptuous of me that
I made a small contribution, on behalf of the Tin Soldiers of Antwerp, to the
organisation which is obviously so close to your heart. Just consider it as a
group of wargamers supporting another group for a very worthwhile
cause.

In closing I can only say that, despite an inauspicious start due
to our negligence, it is a real pleasure to be able to communicate with you in
such a constructive way.And I know the following is an often used platitude
but in this case it couldn't be closer to the truth when I say that I'm really
looking forward to see you here in Antwerp.

best
regards,Willie Bogaerts
A rather eventful few days with a very rewarding outcome and a new destination for us to take the charity event to hopefully we will be able to meet many of you there as well.

I am personally delighted with the outcome as it will enable the bloggers for charity event achieve a wider audience and share this with some of those that are contributing to this as well.

Monday, 2 September 2013

I am sure many of you, will have read on blogs that we spent this last weekend play testing the proposed game for the charity event I can happily report that we have finalised the rules, the terrain layout, table size and most importantly the forces we will use for the game.

The Rules - we very quickly decided that the rules we will use for this game will now be Black Powder. We made this decision based one the ease of play and the fact that as it was going to be a demo game we can easily track what is happening as this will be a bit larger than a skirmish game.

The Terrain Layout - through the play testing we realised that 2 ft of the table will remain unused and have therefore decided to reorganise the layout. The final table will now be made as a 6ft x 6ft , which will be constructed from 4 x 3ft square sections this should make them easily transportable.

The Forces - Sorting these out proved to be relatively easy after the first run through of the game,we knew that we had to make the forces as historically accurate as we could and a lot of research went into getting the information.

The British and Allies:
3 x 12 figure line regiments
2 x 6 figure light infantry
1 x 8 colonial rangers
1 x 12 Provincial Allies
3 x 6 Indian units
In command of these forces will be Massey and 2 officers as well as an Indian Sachem.